


A Sighting of Dragons

by Ciremme



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dragons, Gen, M/M, Old Married Couple, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-22 12:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22515931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciremme/pseuds/Ciremme
Summary: And even centuries later nobody but this one demon and this one angel knew the true story behind the first sighting of dragons.Written for the Good Omens exchange 2019.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	A Sighting of Dragons

The Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., because God liked to get work done early in the morning. The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur skeletons was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. It was also the only joke Hell and Heaven ever considered to be equally funny.

 _Finally_ , demons and angels thought when they heard of the project. _That’ll show them._

Both sides eagerly organized live broadcasts from sites like Haddonfield, Solnhofen, and Tendaguru. No seat was left unfilled. Demons laughed, and angels cheered when researcher after researcher stared in disbelief at the creatures rising from the dust before their eyes. The ‘discovery’ of what the humans would name _Archaeopteryx_ was a special treat for the two audiences. Nothing could have shouted, “Haha, figure that one out!” louder than a feathered reptile-bird from times bygone.

There was one demon, however, who didn’t laugh and one angel who didn’t cheer. Both of them sat in the back of their respective auditoriums, one hiding a smile, the other one a blush. Both of them left amid two loud and long applauses. Both of them pondered why Good and Evil had decided to join forces over fake fossils of all things.

The dinosaur craze distracted the humans from other things happening in the 19th and 20th centuries for sure. But the distraction wasn’t the real reason behind the elaborate bluff, the angel and demon decided. No, Heaven and Hell had finally found a way to settle an old score with the humans. They had found a way to tell them, once and for all, that dragons didn’t exist. That those damned and blessed things were nothing more than a figment of their rebellious imaginations.

But why all this fuss over dragons?

It is written that the apple had been the first offense. The second offense is less well known, which might have to do with the fact that neither Heaven nor Hell had seen it coming. It had literally come out of nowhere. 

The second offense had been the invention of dragons.

There had been no dragons in the Garden. On the sixth day, God had created birds, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, and other scaly creatures of the sea. But no dragons. Not a single one. The dragons were created on the eighth day by the humans.

Nobody knew if Adam, Eve, or both were to blame. Nobody could explain why Eve’s and Adam’s children told gripping tales of giant creatures in the sky to their children. Why their grandchildren added majestic roars and brilliant flames shooting from the monsters’ mouths. And why by the time Adam and Eve’s great-great-grandchildren were born, the tale of dragons had spread to every corner of the world.

It was outrageous, the angels agreed. Why couldn’t humankind just do as they were told? Why did they have to go and invent creatures of their own? Why did they have to revere something that was neither Right nor Wrong, neither Light nor Dark? Why did they have to treat the wonders of Creation like a set of Lego, fair game for them to take apart and reassemble?

While angels scratched their heads and huffed with indignation, the demons were busy taking notes. A winged beast of the sea and sky that could raze entire cities to the ground? _A great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems?_ Why had they left this genius invention to the humans?

And, infuriatingly, the fossils didn’t even stop the human obsession with dragons. All over the Earth, the tales of dragons continued. As soon as humans mastered CGI, they plastered them over their screens. And even centuries after the first discovery of the first _Archaeopteryx_ , some of their favorite new stories revolved around creatures whose existence had never been proven.

What Heaven and Hell didn’t know was that the first sighting of a dragon had, in fact, occurred in the Garden – at a time that was impossible to erase from human memory.

***

It was about to be a dark and stormy night. Slate-black curtains tumbled over Eden. Thunder growled among the hills. The animals, freshly named, cowered from the storm and soon there would be yet another reason for them to be very afraid.

“Well,” the angel said, spreading his wings. “Nice chat, but I suppose I should be on my way.”

“Where are you going?” the serpent asked a bit too quickly. “Back …upstairs?”

“No,” the angel said after a pause, his head tilting sideways. “To where the humans are headed.”

“Oh, you mean beyond the wall? Outside?” the serpent asked excitedly.

“Yes.”

Aziraphale turned his face towards to sky, the cold wind in his feathers, ready to push himself off the ground. But something had sneakily looped itself around his left ankle and held him back like a shackle.

“No,” Crawly said, pulling at him with his tail. “You’re not getting a head start on my watch, angel.”

“Excuse me?” Aziraphale said, “Nobody is stopping you from going to the other side as well.”

“No wings,” Crawly said, his yellow eyes widening slightly. “High walls. Your lot guarding the Gates.”

“Err…”, Aziraphale said. “While your current circumstances are unfortunate, I’m sure your superiors will equip you with wings if you ask them nicely. This can’t be a permanent situation for sure.”

“But,” said the serpent. “I don’t want to ask nicely.”

“Well, neither do I. At least not twice. Now, would you have the courtesy of letting me go?”

“Nope.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes and gave a sigh. Then he beat his wings so fiercely that every blade of grass on the clearing was combed downward. Birds shrieked, and the serpent also gave a yelp when he found his body torn from the ground. But before Aziraphale could gain enough momentum to shake him off, he felt a violent jerk and found himself back on the emerald grass.

After taking a quick inventory of his body (no broken bones), he scrambled to his feet and gave another sigh — louder this time.

Mid-air, the serpent must have found the presence of mind to bury his finger-long teeth into a tree. Now he was struggling to dislodge one of his teeth from the bark. The grasp of the shiny black tail instantly tightened when Aziraphale tried to pry himself free with his hands.

“Hey, that hurts,” he shouted angrily. “Oh, I _should_ have kept that sword!”

With one last wiggle, Crawly managed to detach himself from the tree. Breathing heavily, he spat a few splinters of wood into the grass before he turned his head towards Aziraphale and slithered closer.

“Yess,” he said, eyes glowing. “But you would be dead from my poison anyways before you could draw the blade.”

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale asked. “Well, my blood would poison you in return, you wicked fiend.”

“My scales can be poisonous too,” Crawly hissed. “I wouldn’t even have to bite you.”

“No? You better hurry up then. I could fracture all of your ribs with one flick of my finger against that puny spine of yours.”

“I could choke and devour you long before that!”

“That remains to be seen!”

A violent gust of wind swept over them as they glared at each other. And the next thunder broke through the air so loudly that both of them gave a start. Within seconds, Aziraphale's robes clung to his skin and the coldness made him shudder.

“Fine,” he yelled through the sound of the downpouring rain. “I suppose we have enough time to settle this on the other side. Since you’re unwilling to let go of me anyways just… hold on.”

He fluffed his wings and looked upwards. But, again, before he could push himself off, he felt a pull at his ankle.

“Not like this” the serpent shouted over the grumble of the next thunder. “Do you really think I want to dangle from your foot like some piece of rope? Besides, you might just shake me off mid-air!”

Aziraphale took a deep breath and glared at him with exasperation.

“Well, what do you suggest then?”

“Your shoulders,” Crawly said, casting his eyes down for a moment. “You could… carry me like a shawl.”

“So, you can strangle me once we’re over the wall?”, Aziraphale asked, his eyebrows raised. “That is completely out of the question.”

Lightning hissed through the pitch-black clouds and halved a tree that stood only a few steps away from them. Burning branches crashed downwards, bright flames that were quickly extinguished by the now all-consuming rain.

“Oh, for…”, Crawly heard the angel start, but the rest was unfortunately cut off by another deafening thunder.

Suddenly he felt a weight on his back and hands that pulled a silky fabric around his mid-section. The angel had crawled over his back to tie the belt of his robe around both of them. When he was done, his arms and legs wrapped firmly around Crawly’s body.

“Let go of my ankle,” he repeated behind Crawly’s head, his quiet voice audible despite the raging storm.

“If you untie the belt and drop me,” Crawly clarified against the loud heartbeat that was suddenly filling his ears, “I’ll poison you with my last breath.”

“Understood,” the angel replied. “And now kindly shut up and keep an eye on where we’re going. I can’t see a great deal with your thick skull right in front of me.”

Crawly felt a jolt and the ground, the trees, the forest drew back before his eyes with one stroke of Aziraphale’s wings. The wind cut into his face. The rain ran over his glossy body. All he could do was blink and keep his body straight against the force of gravity to stop the angel from gliding off his back.

“To the left,” Crawly shouted against the mayhem. “The closest wall is on the left!”

Aziraphale shouted something back that he couldn’t understand. The angel was desperately beating his wings against the wind and clinging so tightly to him now that Crawly started to wonder whether he might be the one ending up strangled. They barely made it to the other side. Crawly felt sore for days afterwards, and the pattern of his diamond-shaped scales was printed all over Aziraphale’s wrists, legs, and forehead.

They nodded at each other after the flight and quickly went their separate ways, determined to never talk about this episode to anyone and especially not each other. Neither of them would have dreamt that what they had done that night would become the stuff of legends.

Adam and Eve had seen them in the sky, their entwined figures flickering in the white-hot lightning, their shouting voices drowned by the hungry growls of the thunder.

 _A great creature showed us the way out_ , they later told their children as a bedtime story. _A snake with glowing wings gave us the strength and hope to leave the Garden behind._

And even centuries later nobody but this one demon and this one angel knew the true story behind the first sighting of dragons.

It was, after all, their secret to tell.


End file.
